Skills
There are 35 skills in Mystera, which you "discover" by gaining some experience. Once discovered, a skill will show up in your Character Skills list, which can be accessed from your Character panel, hitting K if you're on PC, or typing /skills. If you die you will lose roughly 5% of your experience in each skill, but this amount is reduced at lower levels. Armor Skills These skills help mitigate incoming damage to your character. Damage mitigation is similar between armor types at first, but pulls further apart at higher skill levels. For more info (like theorycrafting and defense caps) see the Armor page. Light Armor Light armor affords fair protection, but not as much as medium or heavy armor. But in exchange you gain a +10% bonus to dodge, and there are no movement speed penalties. A higher light armor skill mitigates more damage per point of defense. *The first 30 times you're hit by a mob, you'll gain 3xp per point of damage. Medium Armor Medium armor mitigates more damage than light armor does, but has a -50 movement speed penalty in combat and has no bonuses or penalties to dodge. A higher medium armor skill mitigates more damage per point of defense. *The first 30 times you're hit by a mob, you'll gain 3xp per point of damage. Heavy Armor Heavy armor offers the best mitigation, but has a -100 movement speed penalty in combat and a -20% penalty to dodge, making you more vulnerable to armor piercing attacks. A higher heavy armor skill mitigates more damage per point of defense. *The first 30 times you're hit by a mob, you'll gain 3xp per point of damage. Unarmored While not much recommended since it gives less protection than any of the actual armor skills (and the loss in defense from lack of armor), the unarmored skill does afford you some mitigation and a rather high +20% bonus to dodge. *The first 30 times you're hit by a mob, you'll gain 3xp per point of damage. Shield Block Equipping a shield gives a 10% base chance to block attacks that increases by 0.5% per Shield Block skill level, up to 60% at level 100 skill but slows your attacks by 400ms. Blocked damage is reduced to 5-25%, and armor piercing damage can also be blocked which makes shields invaluable against many of the tougher monster types. You will always be hit for at least one damage. *You gain 10 experience in shield block each time you block a hit. Gathering skills Chopping Chopping skill increases the wood you get from trees with your hands or tools: axes are strongly recommended give a significant hidden bonus to chopping skill depending on the quality of the axe (scaling from stone to steel). Trees have either 40 or 60 uses, but they are not always consumed, so at higher chopping levels you can get more wood per tree. Trees will occasionally leave behind a pinecone which can be planted with the Farming skill. * Each use of a tree grants 2 chopping experience. Farming You get farming experience from planting seeds, and it increases the speed at which plants grow and reduces the chance for the plant to wither, which in turn reduces water consumption from adjacent tiles (a withered plant will always return one seed, but will despawn after a few minutes). You can plant in dirt tiles after clearing the grass with a shovel or hoe, but you cannot plant on sand or grass. You can also water plants with buckets of water, or simply plant next to a water source (aka "the vastly preferable method"). Water will hasten plant growth significantly and also reduce withering. * Planting a seed grants 20 farming experience. Fishing You can use a fishing rod and worms to fish in deep water tiles. Your cast rating (A+ through F-) determines how quickly you are likely to catch a fish, but is not related to its size. A higher fishing skill increases the speed at which you can catch fish and the size of the fish you can catch. * Fishing experience (and fish meat quantity) is based on the size of the fish caught. Hotspot While fishing in Galebrook or Wellington you will occasionally receive directions ("You suspect more fish to the south...") that will lead you in a general cardinal direction. When instead the prompt reads "There seems to be a lot of fish here!" you have found the hotspot, a 30x30 area where you can catch fish much, much faster. Foraging * A higher foraging skill increases the chance of gaining materials from bushes. * Dye, holly, salmonberry, and spice bushes all yield different materials. * Foraging will also yield seeds that can be replanted using the Farming skill. Mining * A higher mining skill increases the chance of gaining materials from a rock. * Pickaxes have a hidden mining bonus that increases with the quality of the pickaxe(Starting from stone all the way up to steel. * Different rocks can be found in different biomes that yield different materials. * Each use of a rock grants 1 mining experience. Digging * A higher digging skill increases the effectiveness of shovel-related activities. * Shovels can be used to clear grass, floor, road, and water tiles, and gather materials. Chance while digging in different biomes: * Digging in dirt can produce dirt and worms. * Digging in dirt can also produce a deep water tile at random. * Digging in sand can produce bones. * Digging in snow can produce obsidian. Water * Shoveling a terrain tile next to deep water will produce shallow water. * Shoveling a shallow water tile next to deep water will produce deep water. * Shoveling a shallow water tile not next to deep water will produce a terrain tile. * Shoveling deep water will turn it into shallow water. Tilling A simple skill to clear grass from nature tiles with a hoe. Doing so can collect worms. *You gain some tilling experience each time you use a hoe to clear grass from a dirt tile. (It is not recommended that you invest time in upgrading this skill to its maximum level) Combat Skills These skills boost your damage by 1 every 2 levels depending on what you're fighting. 'Assassin' The assassin skill increases damage against other players. You gain assassin experience by: *Murdering or executing other players, *Winning duels against players using Duel Statues built only in Galebrook, or *Killing Chaos NPCs. You gain significantly less experience from killing lower level players. Take care to know your server's general stance on PvP activity. 'Hunting' The hunting skill increases damage against all NPCs. (mobs) *Each creature/monster type gives a unique amount of hunting experience when defeated. *Killing non-hostile mobs or the same type of mobs repeatedly suppresses exp to just 10% of base amount while alternating between aggressive monster types will yield max amount hunting exp. Weapon Skills These skills boost your damage (1 per 5 levels) and precision (0.5 per level) with different weapons: * Archery: Requires arrows, cannot be trained on a target dummy. * Axe: Weapon skill does not effect chopping; fairly high damage but slower attack speed. * Clubbing: Premiere PvP weapon type, 60% armor penetration. * Dagger: Highest single-target damage except against players in heavy armor. * Hammer: Does not affect destruction; 50%(?) armor penetration, attacks 4 squares in an inverse T. * Pickaxe: Weapon skill does not affect mining; very poor weapon choice. * Spear: Can reach two squares, useful for kiting mobs that only have melee attacks. * Sword: Best multi-target weapon in the game, attacks 3 squares at once. * Unarmed: If you have knuckle weapons or no weapons equipped. After level 10 Unarmed if no weapons are equipped you have a chance to knock your target back one square. If you knock a target back when they are against an obstacle you will swap places with them. Knock backs will not occur while using knuckle weapons. Support skills These skills enhance various attributes of your character, and let you fix and break things. Exploration * Increases movement speed by 3 per level. All maps in the game are divided into 10x10 areas called sectors (ex: Galebrook is 500x500 squares so it is 50 sectors across). Entering a new sector on any map awards exploration experience, but you need to explore 300 new sectors before the first will award experience again. If you backtrack frequently you will rarely gain exploration experience. There are several ways to grind this skill, such as simply running around Deep Cave (with ropes in case you fall through a hole to the Underworld) or Wellington. If you explore the Underworld without backtracking much you can also end up with a fair amount of experience, however each floor only has 100 total sectors, so not enough to reset if you stay put. The easiest method by far if you are on a well populated server is to find an array of roads in Galebrook (perhaps including Market Square and even Wellington) where a round trip will net you more than 300 independent map sectors. For Galebrook this would mean traversing the whole length of the map exactly six times (plus extra for any overlap). Stacking exploration bonuses from equipment is also highly recommended, as it both helps you move faster (gain XP quicker), and give a hidden bonus to exploration XP gain. Journeyman's Rings give +6 Exploration each (a skill XP bonus of 30%, plus 18 movement speed) and a Wanderer's Garb gives +5 (another 25% bonus and 15 movement). Destruction * Enhances your ability to damage other player's structures built on PvP maps. * Hammers have innate bonuses to destruction damage (but not skill level). * You gain destruction experience by attacking structures (must have /pvp enabled). Healing *Enhances your healing abilities when you use bandages or healing potions. Healing experience is most readily gained by healing other characters with bandages. If a starving character punches the air (or does some other mindless activity) they will lose health at a steady rate standing still, allowing you to heal them. You can also offer to team up and heal players who are grinding their armor or shield block skills off mobs. Questing * This skill improves the random loot you can find in chests in some maps and the Underworld. Questing experience is gained by completing quests, and the amount of experience awarded also goes up as you level questing. New characters get many quests to do as part of the tutorial, but after that you will be completing random "kill 5 of X monster" quests. The max difficulty of the monsters assigned depends on your character level. Rerolling If you want a different kill quest than you have been assigned, you can change it with the /reroll command in exchange for gold. The amount of gold depends on the difficulty of the quest and your character level; at level 0 it is free, while higher level characters can face costs of over 100 gold. Try /reroll without gold in your inventory first to check the cost. Repairing * This skill is used to repair equipment with durability and structures using repair kits. * Repairs are 0.25% per level for structures and 0.5% per level for equipment. * At level 10 repair you can expend flint in your inventory to repair up to 6 structures in front of you. * Sweat Catchers are accessories that give +5 Repair each as well as +5 Construction. * Repairing things awards repair experience. AoE repairing with flint gives no extra experience. Research * This skill increases the odds of learning new abilities and decreases the odds of losing them. * Each attempt to learn a new ability from a book awards 50 base experience. ** Books can break on use, making this potentially a very expensive skill to master. ** You can attempt to learn a different rank of an ability you already possess, to overwrite it. The research skill is especially important for learning and retaining higher ranked abilities. Craftsmanship These skills are used to make food, refine materials, craft items, and build in the world. Construction * This skill is used to build in Galebrook and Wellington; also includes things like simple fires and signs. * Each construction level increases the HP of structures built by 1% (HP can also be reinforced). * Anything built with the construction skill gives 40 base experience (floor and road tiles are Crafting). Spamming simple fires (5 wood, 3 tinder, 1 flint) to produce charcoal is a good construction grinding method. Cooking * This skill is used to make food, including using honey and spices for temporary character buffs. * Advanced meals can be made with a cooking pot (guide). * Cooking experience depends on the ingredients and cooking method used. Crafting * This skill is used to make a very wide range of different items. * Many crafted items can proc higher stats and runes. * Higher crafting levels yield an increased chance of creating better items. * Experience gained depends on the specific items being made. Knitting * This skill uses yarn and knitting needles to make light armors and bandages. * Yarn is made by using a spindle with wool in your inventory (higher levels will yield more yarn). * All knitted items can proc higher stats and runes. * Higher knitting levels yield an increased chance of creating better items (at higher rates than crafting). Knitting is done by equipping knitting needles, selecting the item to create, and using the knitting needles repeatedly until it is finished. Knitting an item may fail at lower levels and restart at 0% with no loss of resources. The materials will vanish from your inventory when the project is selected, and the finished item will appear when it is complete. * Each knitting attempt grants 15 base knitting experience. ** Nobleman's Jackets are often made for experience grinding (20 yarn, 4 blue dye). They take 20 successful attempts to complete, so you have the most chances for resets which results in more experience for the same materials. You may wish to avoid +knitting bonuses on gear to get more resets at lower levels. ** If you no longer get resets (past around ~44 knitting) Friar Robes are viable (5 yarn, takes 5 attempts). Smelting * This skill is used to refine metals like tin, copper, and bronze; and iron and steel. * Higher smelting levels yield increased chance for bonus metals from the refining process. * Experience is gained per attempt!! If you smelt 1000 bars at once you get XP for one. The usual grinding method is to smelt 1 bar of tin, copper, or bronze at a time utilizing multiple fire pits. Smithing * This skill is used to add enchants for damage, defense, and skills to equippable items. * Higher levels reduces the chance of destroying items with multiple enchants. * For all the details (as well as experience grinding tips) see the Smithing skill guide.